Between The Lands Eric Wallace

Eric Wallace

The great ocean was cruelly calm. Calm and black. Black as the deepest shadows of a desert grave. And cunning, shooting sudden fierce shards of blinding light into the boat. Out here on the Mediterranean, Jabari thought, light was not your friend. You baked, burned, poached like a sliver of rotting goat floating in palm grease. The thin tent-cloth which had briefly shaded them had been stolen from its flimsy poles by a sneak thief of a night sirocco, leaving above only the chilly stars, then the ominous beauty of dawn, then the harsh climb of the ruthless sun. Yesterday—was that yesterday or two days ago? Three?—it was waves. Waves taller than sand dunes. Waves angrier than raging camels, waves lurching, heaving, lifting the boat, slamming it down into the concrete-hard surface, the air filled with stinging spray and spume, snarling, salty upsurges, frigid waterfalls ripping and drenching. There were no life jackets. Very safe crossing, easy. So it was said. A cruel joke. Which was better? Storms from the sea or cremation from the sky? Jabari squinted in the hazy glare, his gritty eyelids resisting, looked at his fellow sufferers. Those pressed around him came from Tunisia, Libya, Ethiopia, Chad, Niger, from refugee camps in Sudan. Drought, famine, religious persecution and war drove them like animals to the edge of the ocean, the lure of a future pulling at them from across the shimmering surface. Here everyone was, cast upon the waters of this ancient sea, with places of safety surely not so far off, perhaps a rescue vessel even closer? Rescue. Jabari bit his parched lips. There had been no rescue for his village from drought and disease, no rescue for his beloved wife, dead, his beautiful twin boys, dead. He had to move on. People said flee north to Europe. Safety, work, a new life. A confusion of so many colors. So many sad colors. You wear color for hope, for life, but the once-bright cheerfulness mocks you as you float in exhaustion, thirst. Red was especially sad. Jabari had buried Amara in her favorite red yelik, sewn and dyed by Amara herself. A bewilderment of sounds, wailing, whimpering,

praying, moaning, a buzz of low tribal tongues, infants crying, beneath it all their puny engine’s lethargic rumble and the constant slush and swoosh of the ocean. Jabari closed his eyes again. The sun blazed red through his eyelids.

The boat driver was a grim-faced Berber named Mehedi. As they’d squeezed aboard, he pointed a filthy finger at himself. Naqib Mehedi. He growled in Arabic, snarled a word or two in Amharic, barked short phrases in French. He spoke one English word, captain, with an ugly outthrust of his jaw and further jabs at his chest. Mehedi sat in the stern on gas tanks padded with oily sheepskins. He gripped the tiller with a brooding, angry determination. He chewed khat, hawking small grassy balls and slimy brown streams. They didn’t always make it into the ocean. He never slept but dozed with one bloodshot eye half-open. He made it clear he had a curved Jambiya dagger tucked into the fat rope at his waist.

Far behind them now, lost in the blurred brightness, was Africa. Ahead, still unseen, was Europe, a cypher, a halfremembered promise. But also more worry. Before they’d left they’d heard rumors of boatloads of refugees turned away, of angry fighting on the beaches, of rejection and despair. “Foolish rumors!” said the grinning overseers, herding people like sanga cattle. “Rumors,” the overseers scoffed, “are like the dirty foam at the shore, meaningless sea fluff filled with nothing but air! Forget the rumors! Europe wants you! Hurry, pay us and go!” The fatigued throngs chose to believe in welcoming arms. Too many people. This little boat, this rubber dinghy, whatever it was, surely was built for no more than fifteen, yet the shouting overseers had crammed in more and more until it bulged beyond crowded, beyond teeming. Fifty? Sixty? Seventy? Not counting the screaming babies. And now, food and water had become an issue. The journey was taking forever. Overloaded and underpowered, the dinghy wasn’t fast. The storms had slowed them further. Jabari began to doubt that Mehedi could steer them on the shortest route with only the battered flip-open brass compass he consulted. Could he even find the promised lands? 100

Shouldn’t the sun be behind us, are we going west, not north? They had been told it would take perhaps three days. But this was now the fifth or sixth. Had someone lied? Was this Berber taking them the wrong way? Were they already in hell? Or was this heaven, a brutal parody of what anyone believed heaven to be?

On the seventh day, the growl of the engine changed to a stomach rumble, burped and gave way to silence. Mehedi cursed, fussed, checked the fuel, raised the housing, tugged at wires, thumped at the carburetor, slapped his head. Hashim! Broken! He rummaged in his camel saddlebag and pulled out a bulky telephone. Staring skywards, he tried to reach the satellite gods. They didn’t answer. Hashim! Kaput! Mehedi’s voice held disbelief, scorn. Reluctantly, he gestured to the refugees, asking in Arabic if anyone knew what to do. Jabari and the others knew nothing of engines. They knew nothing of satellite phones. They were farmers, goattenders, tentmakers, bakers, potters, weavers. No one spoke. No one stepped forward. Mehedi sat on his makeshift bench and picked his nose.

The days scorched. At night a cold, white, scimitar moon mocked their anguish. Water? Little left. Food? Becoming a thing of memory. Jabari recalled a crumbling biscuit, a few shreds of jerky, a fig so wizened it could have been the shriveled heart of a long-dead pharaoh. Gone were the blue-and-white relief agency packages, gone were the few boxes of Turkish fruit, gone were most of the jugs of water, tossed indifferently among them as they began to steal out of port. One lucky man found a large scorpion aboard, smacked it with a trembling sandal. As others avidly envied, he ate it raw, pausing only to remove the stinger. On his long trek to the coast, Jabari had stopped at an oasis. Green shade, soft, lush dates, cold, fresh water, surely from the fountains of paradise. His fevered mind curled like a wave. Might there be an oasis out here in the ocean? Was there any respite from these eternal salt waters and burning skies?

Several times they saw fishing boats not many meters away. The fishermen always ignored their cries, turned their backs on those who raised their arms in supplication. Long tankers and huge cruise ships slid silently along the far horizon. Out there were mirages, fata morganas, mindtwisted images, water spouts. Were those sea monsters swaying in the distant glare? If a monster dared to swim close, Jabari knew he would eat it. The boat pitched, a chaos of smells, rotting brine, vomit, urine, feces, sweat, the stench of fear. They were seasick, dehydrated, spent, famished. Jabari licked his fissured lips.

It was a young Egyptian woman who raised the alarm. A high, incoherent jabbering. An accusatory, unsteady pointing. Mehedi, hunched on his gas can throne, was furtively eating. As he recoiled, his tunic slipped, revealing a hoarded box on his lap. He fumbled for his dagger. A grin creased his dirty face. He felt in the box with his free hand. He pulled out a fat apple. Jabari stared. This was no colocynth, the bitter, yellowgreen apple of the desert. This was a dazzling prize. Red, full and round. Tafaha! Mehedi croaked. Pomme de Turc! He dangled the apple high by the stem, an executioner displaying a severed head.

Jabari felt delirious. He saw only the fruit. Red for danger. Red for the bulls the Spanish tormented. Red for— The dinghy rocked. The dagger blade glinted. The apple beckoned. Jabari had tasted these fruits in Tripoli. Firm, sweet, of heaven itself. Heaven. He knew of the Christian miracle of the loaves and fishes, a few bites wondrously increased to feed a multitude. Might this one apple now fill all their bellies? He would slice it with that knife, share with everyone. Miracles are dangerously close to hallucinations. His muscles cramping, Jabari lunged. Mehedi swung the dagger. Blood spurted. Jabari collapsed. Others rushed, shoved. Mehedi tumbled backwards, his mouth wide open, fell overboard, the apple flying from his hand.

Jabari sprawled face-first on the edge of the dinghy, mesmerized by the blue-black swells. He saw the apple float102

ing close, red as the insides of his eyelids, red as Amara’s burial robe, red as the blood oozing along the hot, stinking rubber. A distant klaxon. Jabari strained, tried to focus. Far off, a blur. A ship? To rescue them? To force them back? Was it even there? Jabari wheezed, lowered his head, stared dreamily at the strangelylanguid waves. The apple bobbed, round, red, gleaming in the relent-

less sun.

BARREL

The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less.

ARTHUR MILLER